The Chatterbox Challenge

[Chelltune]

I requested some info about The Chstterbox Challenge as I intend to add it to my own site but I thought it would be relevant here also.

The Chatterbox Challenge is an easy and fun way to Make Chatter Matter. It’s a cute and engaging way to highlight the importance of children’s communication development and get everyone talking. It also gives children an opportunity to build their speech and language skills and confidence.

By learning and performing their chosen jungle-themed action song or rhyme children have bundles of fun developing their own communication skills while raising money for children with a speech and language difficulty.

The theme of this year’s Chatterbox Challenge, principally sponsored by Openreach with Leap Toys (UK) and Early Learning Centre, is ‘the jungle’. Come February next year there’ll be hundreds of unforgettable wild events taking place across the UK in Early Learning Centres, nurseries, pre-schools, playgroups and other settings, involving cheeky monkeys and little lions. Songs and nursery rhymes this year will include ‘Three Little Monkeys’ and ‘We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo’.

The Chatterbox Challenge raises money to support I CAN’s work supporting children with severe and complex communication disability.
Children with a communication disability might have difficulty:
1. understanding and finding the right words
2. producing, ordering and discriminating between speech sounds
3. knowing how words, phrases and sentences are put together to convey meaning
4. using and understanding language in different social situations

Registrations for the Chatterbox Challenge opened on October 10, 2006. Everyone who registers will receive I CAN’s free activity pack brimming with ideas and activities designed by I CAN’s teachers and speech and language therapists with communication development in mind. Included in the pack are some suggested songs and jungle jingles, colour-in certificates, stickers and sponsor forms. To register call 0870 45 85 475 or visit www.chatterboxchallenge.org.uk.

Alternatively, I CAN is calling on all parents, grandparents, childminders and carers to take children along to their nearest Early Learning Centre store on Tuesday, February 6 at 10am for a Chatterbox Challenge sing-along. It’s free and lots of fun for children.